Imagine a world where you could unbank yourself and take control of your own financial destiny. No longer would the nasty evil corporate shareholder driven banks enslave you. Since the financial crisis banks have modified their language and talk stakeholders rather than shareholders but scratch under the surface and nothing has changed.
So the principle of retail banking is they take your money and lend it to borrowers and make a profit on the interest rate spread. Only thanks to the bailouts of a decade ago they no longer want your money and offer paltry below inflation rates of interest to support their profit model and in some cases they even charge you for the privilege of (historically) providing liquidity for their model.
Crypto was supposed to be different...
... don't get me wrong in many ways it is. We can drive our own investments and take responsibility for our own profits (and losses) and certainly outperform banking returns. I started investing in crypto in June 2020 I have seen gains that I wouldn't see in a thousand years from a bank, Early on i even predicted a future model where stablecoin payments will push such services as PayPal out and it is no coincidence that PayPal have started looking into crypto assets themselves.
A common crypto mantra is not to keep your crypto on an exchange - 'that's just asking for trouble'
So that means holding it on a wallet - either a hardware LEDGER or a software wallet supported by unique keys that will make crypto inaccessible if lost.
Sounds great so long as you are careful with keys.
I have been following a number of crypto platforms almost from the beginning and the same thing comes up again and again.
Wallets! Wallets! Wallets!
Admittedly it seems that some are better than others, but on the whole it the same story again and again. Scores of people have sent their crypto to a secure wallet only to find it can't be shifted because of extortionate gas fees. It is widely stated that these fees are not their fault and I am not in a position to comment one way or the other. We all know the story of the investor who lost $10,000 in gas in a transfer and recently I have encountered in principle the same thing when trying to shift assets. In my case the amounts were smaller and I realised before completing and so nothing was lost.
But suddenly getting next to no interest and paying banking fees ranging from a percentage to ?30 - ?50 for more complex actions seems a lot more lucrative or if moving funds internationally think about such services as TransferGo or Transferwise (I am not necessarily advocating either of them).
I too have assets being held on a wallet and my financial training tells me I should just write them off as a bad debt and chalk it down to experience.
So wallet is the dirtiest word in Cryptoland and until this is addressed it can only hobble crypto as it seeks to move forward and deliver on its liberating promises.
As always my friends stay safe and stay well.
